


whatever our souls are made of

by LullabyKnell



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alliances, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Feels, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Confrontations, Dishonored 1, Enemies, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Low Chaos (Dishonored), Low Chaos Corvo Attano, Low Chaos Daud (Dishonored), One Shot, POV Third Person, Tired Corvo Attano, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:07:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26366914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LullabyKnell/pseuds/LullabyKnell
Summary: “And what if I don’t kill you?” Attano demanded, his sword still stained with Daud’s blood.Daud’s eyes narrowed in disbelief. “...Then I’ll leave this city,” he said, steady despite his clear pain and exhaustion. “Fade from memory. Nothing more than an old nightmare.”Attano fell silent again. Just when it seemed as though the man had used up all his words, he spoke again and said, “Is that the only option?”
Relationships: Corvo Attano & Daud
Comments: 11
Kudos: 109





	whatever our souls are made of

**Author's Note:**

> I know there's no indication that anyone besides Corvo can hear the Heart in _Dishonored_ , but go with it. 
> 
> Daud's speech and the Heart's lines are directly from the game. Novelization that turns into Canon Divergence.

Daud didn’t so much leap as he stumbled off the edge of the makeshift bridge, letting a transversal catch him out of his fall and carry him away from his office. Unfortunately, as soon as the man’s feet hit the half-broken floors of the neighboring building, his legs gave out beneath him. Daud crumpled, clutching at the last blow that Corvo Attano had landed on his torso, and fell hard, the blood splattering across the broken floorboards. 

Daud’s sword went clattering across the broken room, out of reach. 

On his hands and knees, Daud pushed himself up on one shaking elbow, and let his bloody hand pat over his coat for another dart, another bolt, or just one last remedy. But there was nothing. Attano had even managed to slice off his bone charms during the fight inside, except for one, which now lay uselessly beside him, offering him no last minute miracles. 

The heavy scrape of boots turned Daud’s head towards the makeshift bridge between buildings, as Attano stalked across it and towards him, looking like death. The mechanical mask resembled a grey skull. The long, dark coat was wet and filthy, best fit for a plague victim. His sword was still dripping blood - _Daud’s_ blood - and the man’s bare left hand flexed with power. The Lord Protector even looked like a vengeful mockery of a Whaler, stalking the killers for whom he’d taken the fall. 

“I have… one more surprise for you...” Daud began. 

The man forced himself off the floor, a hand to his side to stop the splashes of blood beneath him from becoming a pool, so that he was down on one knee in front of the man who’d taken the punishment for his crimes. 

Attano only watched silently as Daud stared up at him. There was nothing in him which seemed to perceive the assassin before him as a threat. 

“...I ask for my life.” 

Attano’s left hand flexed again, but his blade stayed still. 

As though sensing that he had very little time to make his case, Daud continued quickly. 

“When I killed the Empress and took her daughter… something broke inside me,” the man admitted, voice low and rough. He looked Attano in the eye, through the deathly mask, and didn’t look away. “Now, I see the design on the back of your hand, the mark of the Outsider himself, and I remember all I’ve done. 

“The years of waiting for the right moment to step forward from an alley and drive a knife between the ribs of some noble,” Daud reminisced bitterly. “All the money exchanging hands, from one rich bastard to another. Killing for one of them one year, then being paid to kill him in return the next. I remember bending at the shrines, listening as the Outsider whispered that I was going to change things, that I was somehow _important…”_

Daud’s voice dropped even lower as he admitted, “It felt good; made me believe I was powerful.” 

As though not to test Attano’s patience, as though having no more patience of his own, Daud then demanded, “But what have I accomplished? More than you have… or much less?” 

Attano didn’t answer. 

“Now, I want nothing but to leave this city,” Daud said, sounding too exhausted to be bitter anymore. His eyes became briefly distant, looking off into nothing, in his resignation. “And fade from the memory of those who reside here. I’ve had enough killing.” 

He then refocused on Attano, his exhaustion turning almost daring. “So my life is in your hands,” he said. “Make your choice.” 

Daud fell silent then, as though he had said all that needed to be said now. 

But as the man stared, Attano still didn’t move. 

Until finally, Attano reached into his filthy jacket with his left hand, and withdrew something leathery and reddish, fitted with wires and metal. To Daud’s, it looked like the man was holding a human heart in his hand, turned into a device. To Daud’s ears, came a whisper like the song of whale bones. 

_“...in the schoolyard, the other children would marvel at his quick hands…”_ a woman’s voice whispered, faintly familiar. _“One day, a man came for young Daud, and led him away…”_

Daud’s brow furrowed slightly. 

Attano brought the Void-saturated lump away from the safety of his chest by several inches, turning it more towards Daud. The woman’s voice spoke again, clearer now. Sharper. 

_“Paid assassin. Daud. The last thing the… Empress… felt was his blade.”_

Daud’s eyes widened as the voice faltered at the end, becoming more than an impersonal spiller of secrets. He looked up at Attano’s mask, clearly searching for answers, but the mechanical skull hiding the man was impenetrable. The only indication of thought Attano gave was raising the haunting device, turning his head slightly towards it. 

_“...Why have you brought me here?”_ the voice moaned at the Lord Protector, through the Void, wretched and trembling with anger. _“Am I meant to forgive this man for what he_ **_did_ ** _?!”_

Attano lowered the haunting device again, which spoke with the pain and wrath of a dead Empress, turning his head slightly away from it now. Almost like a flinch. His grip on his sword tightened, causing the bloodied blade to waver. 

**_“No!_ ** _”_ the haunting device raged. _“There is no turning back from the path he has chosen!”_

Daud looked too tired, too broken, to flinch himself, but he lowered his head slightly. It appeared as though he was preparing himself for the fate he believed to be inevitable now - for the blade which would descend now at any moment and deliver a fair judgment long in the coming. 

But Attano stayed still, frozen, until he finally thrust the haunting device out towards Daud one last time. 

They waited. 

_“His hands do violence…”_ the Empress condemned. 

Daud stared between it and Attano, as a dead woman shared something already known. 

But then the Empress’ voice turned soft, quiet, miserable and longing, and the device made of a human heart whispered, _“...But there is a different dream in his heart…”_

Daud closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. 

When the exhausted man opened his eyes again, Attano still hadn’t made a move to finish, and Daud seemed to run out of painful silence. Attano was fixated on the human heart and noticeably trembling, his sword shaking in his hand and the arm holding the haunting device was unsteady, but the mask hid the face of the fallen Lord Protector’s anger. 

“Well?” Daud challenged hoarsely. “Make your choice.” 

Corvo Attano looked away from the haunting device, directly towards Daud again. Finally, for the first time, the man spoke. 

“You…” His voice was hoarse as well, muffled by the mask, but there was no missing the disgust in the man. “...You give me _permission_ to take your life…?” The strength of his own disdain sent him into a series of mechanical coughs, which wracked his body. 

“...Acceptance,” Daud offered instead, not denying it. 

“And what if I don’t kill you?” Attano demanded, his sword still stained with Daud’s blood. 

Daud’s eyes narrowed in disbelief. “...Then I’ll leave this city,” he said, steady despite his clear pain and exhaustion. “Fade from memory. Nothing more than an old nightmare.” 

Attano fell silent again. Just when it seemed as though the man had used up all his words, he spoke again and said, “Is that the only option?” 

“...My life is in your hands.” 

“Are you offering yourself up for whatever punishment I devise instead?” Attano demanded, his voice still wrecked. “Knowing what I did to those who wielded you, without killing them?” 

The force of Attano’s demand sent him coughing again. 

Daud stayed silent, looking down. 

Once he’d recovered, Attano spoke again, like a dam had finally broken in the man who had moved through Daud’s base like a ghost. “Some would say that you trade in lives. But you don’t. You sell the service of destroying them. You take, but you can’t give back. Your life for hers… your life for hers… do you think that your death is _worth_ her life to me?” 

Attano spread his arms slightly as he spoke, gesturing with the Void-saturated device which spoke with the dead Empress’ voice and anger. Daud closed his eyes, breathing deeply, a hand still tightly clutched to his side. 

“I don’t want your _death._ I don’t want your _life._ I want _her life,”_ Attano snarled, before breaking down into another coughing fit. 

“...I can’t undo it,” Daud said exhaustedly, the picture of a man who had nothing to offer and knew it. “Don’t ask me to try, either. I won’t. Don’t think that anyone will like the result of crossing those lines.” 

Daud’s eyes flickered up towards the heart in Attano’s hand, then quickly down again. 

Attano stared at him. 

“...You want to leave this city. All the blood you’ve spilled. Death or banishment, either way you get to escape what you’ve done,” Attano said coldly. “You want out.” 

“Yes,” Daud admitted. 

“What then?” Attano demanded, then coughed. “Will you continue your work? Will a foreign ruler throw your crimes on their soil onto Dunwall’s doorstep someday?” 

Daud shook his head. “No. No more.” 

“Retirement,” Attano named it, disgusted. “You want _peace.”_

“I don’t remember peace,” Daud said honestly. “I can’t say I’ve ever known it.” 

Attano made a sound like a cough. Maybe a scoff. 

“...Coldridge, then?” Daud asked, with a low, pained chuckle. “My suffering’s not enough for you unless it’s a long, miserable show of what you suffered? You’re a vindictive bastard, Attano, but… ah… that’s already been made clear… I should’ve known…” 

“No.” 

“...No?” 

“Coldridge won’t hold a man like you,” Attano said. 

And then, surprisingly, he crouched down in front of Daud, so that they were face to face. 

Face to mask, at least. 

A flash of uncertainty crossed Daud’s face, gone again in a blink. 

“Could stick you in a cell and put an Overseer’s music box outside it,” Attano said coldly, tucking the human heart back into the folds of his coat. “Play their damn song all night and day to keep you down.” 

Daud didn’t lean back, but he did waver, slightly. Briefly. 

Attano coughed. “But that wouldn’t hold back your men, would it? They seem… loyal. If you’re dead, will they disperse, without seeking revenge?” 

Daud stayed still at first, but then he nodded. “Told ‘em to stay out of this.” 

“And if you’re banished, will they follow you? Or will one of them step up to fill your shoes? To be the next Knife of Dunwall?” Attano continued, still so coldly. “A knife is a knife. They can’t all be marked by the Outsider, but none of them are harmless. None of them have clean hands, do they?” 

“...They’ll follow. They were always following me… following my decisions… leave them out of this.” Daud, filled with new tension, seemed to be searching yet again for something in the harsh mask in front of him. Finally, he added, gruffly, “Please…” 

Attano stayed still. “...Haven’t killed any of them yet.” 

Daud snorted, then closed his eyes again and inhaled in relief. “Left them across town with sleep darts sticking out of their asses instead, I know. ...Th- I know.” 

Attano’s left hand flexed, like other men tapped their fingers. “...I don’t have the place to send you all to Coldridge anymore,” he said, consideringly. “And I’m not foolish enough to think that you’ll all walk inside and throw your swords down, begging the Watch to arrest you and the Overseers to execute you, either, just because I tell you to repent. Or out of remorse.” 

“You’d have to drag us there,” Daud admitted. 

“...I won’t send you all off together to live on your blood money…” 

Daud inclined his head. 

“...Not yet.” 

Daud opened his eyes and stared piercingly at the man in front of him again. 

Attano was sitting down properly now, lowering himself onto the broken and weathered floorboards, reaching for his mask with his left hand. There was a soft click, undoing whatever secured the deathly disguise, and Attano slowly pulled the terrible mask away. 

“...You think you’re the only one who’s tired of the death?” Attano demanded, his hoarse voice finally unaffected by the mechanical muffling. 

The man really did look like death. 

He was intensely pale, as though sunlight on his skin was a long-forgotten memory. His once handsome face was gaunt almost like a plague victim. His recent poisoning seemed to have wrecked him, and suddenly the persistent tremor in his hands couldn’t be attributed solely to adrenaline and rage. His dark hair was wet and filthy, clinging to his face, his jaw was dark with beard growth, and his eyes were bloodshot. 

“...You look like shit,” Daud observed. 

“You have no room to talk,” Attano replied exhaustedly, bitterly. 

It was possible that he didn’t mean that Daud looked equally terrible, but rather that the man had no right to comment on his wretched appearance, not when Daud was partially responsible for the man’s suffering. It would have been hard for Daud to say what had sapped away the life of the Lord Protector since the last time they’d faced each other, but it might have been fair to say that it had been everything. 

Daud had landed his own blows on the man during their fight. 

“If your life is in my hands, then this is what I ask of you: I need you to be my hands,” Attano said roughly, challenging. “You’re good at that, aren’t you?” 

Daud didn’t flinch. He just stared. 

Attano coughed again, wet and painful. “...I don’t know how long I’ll last at this rate.” 

“Are you…?” 

“Dying? Maybe,” Attano answered, not breaking eye contact. “I’ve been shot, stabbed, beaten, bitten, poisoned, nearly electrocuted… and that was _before_ all of this started. All in a day’s work. Since that day… I don’t pretend that I’d be alive right now if not for this mark.” 

He raised his left hand, showing off the Outsider’s mark. 

“...And I don’t pretend to know its price.” 

Daud said nothing, hardly privy to the details of the other man’s deal with the Outsider. 

It could be killing Attano, for all either of them knew. 

Attano went on grimly. “I have no allies in this city. No friends. Burrows drove out as many good people as he could; Havelock’ll get rid of the rest who might take Emily’s side. But… you don’t need to be told how this city’s gone to shit… do you?” 

“...No.” 

“I could have the plague. I haven’t taken a life yet, but my hands haven’t stayed clean with the shit I’ve been climbing through. I’ve choked weepers. Waded through the flood. Been swarmed by rats. And I have no way of knowing how long it’ll take to find Emily again and put her on the throne as more than someone’s puppet. I can’t afford to die… but I might anyway. Come close enough too many times now.” 

Daud snorted. “...And you think _I’ll_ be a good friend to you, Lord Protector? Because my men fished you out of the Wrenhaven to sell you like meat?” 

“No,” Attano said, then coughed into his shoulder. “But I don’t have anyone else.” 

Daud didn’t appear to have anything to say to that. 

“...I don’t want you to kill for me,” Attano said firmly. “I don’t need a killer.” 

“That’s all that I am,” Daud said. 

Attano said nothing, but his gaze was warning, unimpressed. 

_Angry._

“There’s no turning back for me,” Daud said. 

The man looked directly at Corvo’s coat, at the spot where two hearts lay hidden beneath the layers, side by side. One heart was alive. The other was… not. 

“No,” Attano agreed, showing off his teeth. “Only going _forward.”_

It was a statement that echoed, given the Lord Protector’s half-ruined state. 

“Too many people have been caught up in the pursuit of power for power’s sake,” Attano croaked. “I'm _not_ a murderer; I won't have you make me one now."

Daud huffed, as though to say, _"Fair enough."_

"Emily doesn’t need even more of a mess to rule over. If you’ve had enough killing, but can’t find your way without it, then take your men and _go._ And _never_ return.” 

The _“or else”_ went unsaid, but not unheard, between them. 

“But if you want to change things…” Attano said, his exhaustion and anger turning openly daring. “If you want to accomplish something more than being the knife of a man who brought sickness to this city, then there’s a little girl whose life you ruined to start with. Then… _then…_ you can go. I don’t want your death. I don’t need your life.” 

Daud stared some more, then huffed. “So you choose mercy…” 

Attano didn’t deny it. 

“...Unexpected,” Daud pronounced. 

“I’ve had enough unnecessary death,” Attano said. “Enough suffering. Enough pain.” 

“...What about your Empress?” Daud asked. 

“She’s dead,” Attano answered flatly. “It’s not her choice anymore. Emily is the only one who matters now.” 

Then he reached into his coat and, fortunately, instead of that haunting device that spoke for a dead woman, withdrew a red vial of Solokov’s Elixir, and held it out to Daud, who was still holding a hand against his bleeding side. 

Daud hesitated. 

“Make your choice, assassin,” Attano said, his voice still an icy shipwreck. “Don’t throw the choice on me now, as though that will make up for what you did on someone else’s orders. Live with what you’ve done. With your unpayable debt. Fix what you did, as well as bloody hands can manage, and refuse to continue to be what the world has made you, or leave now for calmer waters. It’s up to you.” 

The vial of Solokov’s Elixir was trembling, Attano’s hand unable to hold it steady. 

Daud reached out and took the vial with his free hand. A lifeline. 

“You have a deal, Lord Protector,” he said. 

**Author's Note:**

> Played _Dishonored_ and _The Knife of Dunwall_ this past week. Very fun. I intend to work my way through _The Brigmore Witches_ and _Dishonored 2_ now at a slower pace. 
> 
> Daud and Corvo are both fun protagonists. Their interactions are flooded with some really great tension and grief. Corvo is SUCH a mess during The Flooded District mission, which makes a Low Chaos run even more delightful in my opinion. He's been fucked over SO many times and NO, he's STILL not killing anyone. 
> 
> No intentions of continuing this one shot yet! More DLC and at least one other game to go!


End file.
